Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Volume 15 - Paperback

• Release Date   9/13/2013
• ISBN-13   9781236917133 | 978-1-236-91713-3
• ISBN   1236917138 | 1-236-91713-8
• Format   Paperback
• Author(s)   Royal Society of Edinburgh
• This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...of organisms so cultivated may have something to do with these results, but it must also be borne in mind that phosphate of soda is almost invariably one of the ingredients of a cultivating fluid, and we have seen that wherever it is present some micro-organisms flourish in spite of the presence of either bichloride or biniodide of mercury. The conflicting results of various observers are only to be explained by taking such factors into consideration. Klein's and Law's observations, though interpreted by them in different ways, may in all probability be brought under the same heading. and it appears to be possible that Klein's lower results, as compared with those of Koch, in the use of bichloride of mercury as an antiseptic, may have some such explanation as the following:--The peptones, like other albuminoids, are coagulable by bichloride of mercury. hence a large proportion of the salt may be rendered completely inactive. It may be pointed out that, in Klein's experiments, a single drop of the fluid in which the micro-organisms had been cultivated was drawn into a pipette, and then 100 drops (or these proportions) of the sublimate solution. It will be evident that, under these conditions, all the albumen in the cultivation medium would be coagulated immediately, and would so remain, for there is an excess of the mercury salt, not of the albumen. In such a case it is quite possible that there is actually a coating or pellicle of albuminate of mercury formed at an early stage around the spores or micro-organisms which, protecting them against the action of the added sublimate solution, is only dissolved when the organisms with their pellicles are again introduced into a nutrient fluid in which, of course, there is sufficient albumen to...